


quicken the heart

by crucios



Series: tell me what you need [2]
Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:20:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22819924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crucios/pseuds/crucios
Summary: The words come spilling out a bit like a cup clumsily overflowing. Marti can feel his cheeks heat up a little. It's not even that he's embarrassed. Not really. It'sNico. He can tell Nico anything. It's just... a strange thing to hear himself say. Before Nico he had never properly imagined that he would ever be this intimate with someone—intimate enough to be able to have conversations like this.
Relationships: Niccolò Fares/Martino Rametta
Series: tell me what you need [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640413
Comments: 6
Kudos: 72





	quicken the heart

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't what I meant to write, exactly. But when have I ever written anything that I meant to write? This fits in maybe a month or so after _Tell Me What You Need_. But it can standalone, probably. It does, however, allude to something mentioned in _Tell Me What You Need_. A lot of people kindly asked for some semblance of it. This isn't exactly that, but it's part of it. It's leading there. You get the idea.

*

"So, I've been thinking," Marti starts, peering over his coffee cup and trying for casual.

He's not entirely sure how else he's supposed to broach this. When Nico had brought it up he was hazy and half-desperate, Marti's hand on his dick and his lips mouthing at Nico's neck. It had been a heat-of-the-moment admission — Nico vulnerable in the wake of a particularly terrible afternoon — that they hadn't properly discussed until later when they were an intertwined post-orgasm jumble of limbs, fighting the beginnings of sleep in the comfortable midnight-dark of Marti's room.

It's light out now, for a start.

Also, they're in the middle of breakfast. Which in hindsight, Marti supposes might not have been the most appropriate time to attempt this conversation. But he's steeled himself for it now. He even spent a rather inordinate amount of time under the cooling spray of Nico’s shower, carefully trying to organise words into sentences in his head — though, not to much avail — while Nico still slept.

Nico looks at him curiously now, morning light catching golden across his face. "Martino,” he says airily. “If you're going to suggest mini-golf for date night tonight, I'm already vetoing it. You nearly poked my fucking eye out with the golf club last time. I could be blind."

"You're really never going to let that go, are you?" Marti says with a roll of his eyes. It was nudge in the eye, if anything.

Nico grins, all teeth and bright amusement. "Not ever."

"It's not about mini-golf. It's—" Marti cuts off and takes a precautionary breath. "I was just thinking. You know when we—well, when I—you know."

Nico raises his eyebrows, and there's a bit of a teasing lilt to his voice when he says, "Don't hurt yourself."

Marti huffs and pokes at his arm. "Shut up," he says lightheartedly. "I just—I don't know how to say this."

This is admittedly not going as well as he had planned. Or not planned, as the case apparently is. If he had properly planned this they probably wouldn't be standing in the middle of Nico's kitchen drinking coffee.

Nico frowns. He's starting to look a little concerned now, shoulders hardening into a tense, steel line of panic. "Marti, what's going on?"

And Marti forgets sometimes—how quickly Nico's brain can jump to a potential worst-case scenario, like a rocket scientist predicting every possible trajectory that might end in _crash, fire, death_. Marti's getting better at knowing what not to say, what conversation starters could potentially set off Nico's fight or flight response. But sometimes he still says the wrong thing. He probably should have tried to word this all a bit better. Traitorous fucking shower. The last thing he wants is for Nico to think he's trying to break up with him when actually he's just trying to figure out how to tell him that he's a little bit — a lot — curious about what it feels like to be choked during sex.

It’s a learning curve, Filippo once told him. Not the choking—he hasn’t told Filippo about _that_. But the need for a sustained consciousness of Nico’s fears and the words—or combinations of words—that might trigger them. Marti’s getting there. He's curving.

He leans into Nico's side. "It's nothing bad. I promise," he assures.

"Okay." Nico nods, whatever tension that had been building seeming to dissipate. "Okay. So..."

"So," Marti allows, clearing his throat. He might as well just put it out there. "I was thinking about what it might feel like if we tried the choking thing the other way around. You doing it to me, I mean."

The words come spilling out a bit like a cup clumsily overflowing. Marti can feel his cheeks heat up a little. It's not even that he's embarrassed. Not really. It's _Nico_. He can tell Nico anything. It's just... a strange thing to hear himself say. Before Nico he had never properly imagined that he would ever be this intimate with someone—intimate enough to be able to have conversations like this. Particularly when it comes to his own desires.

Nico's hand falters on his coffee cup. It clangs too-loud against the saucer in the quiet of the kitchen. Marti jumps a little at the sound.

"Marti."

"Only if it's something you want to try," Marti says quickly, just in case that wasn't clear. "Obviously if it's not, that's—"

"You asshole," Nico interrupts, letting out a bit of a breathless, hysterical laugh.

"What?"

"You just—Marti, you can't just say something like that at—" Nico glances at the clock on the wall, "ten-thirty on a Saturday morning over coffee."

Marti's lips curve into a relieved smile, body awash with ease. "Why not?" he asks—as if the ill-judged time and setting had never occurred to him.

Nico puts down his coffee cup and gives Marti a wholly unimpressed look, as if to say _you know exactly why_. His eyes drag over Marti's eyes—lips—neck and back again. Then, a little undone: "Fuck. Are you serious?"

"Deadly serious," Marti says with a grin. An almost blasé shrug. "Unless you don't want to."

Marti’s baiting him now, feeling bold. Nico knows it, too. He shakes his head, almost exasperated, something anticipatory flickering across his face. He takes Marti’s coffee cup from his fingers — sets it down clumsily on the counter with that same echoing clang — and replaces it with his own fingers, curling them around Marti’s hand like a chain link. When Nico pulls, Marti goes easily. Magnetic and unstoppable, sealing the link.

Nico kisses him breathlessly, something sparking and wild in it, Marti pressed against the counter. It's half-desperate and Marti is unbearably turned on by the fact that Nico is so turned on—wants to know exactly what Nico's thinking, every fantasy tumbling about in his head. Marti forgets for a moment that they’re in Nico’s kitchen, Nico’s parents undoubtedly on their way home from breakfast at a nearby café. All he can feel is this: Nico's warm and desperate mouth on his. His hands pulling through Marti’s hair. The thrum of their bodies pressed together. Quickening hearts beating loud blood in tandem. Just this.

"I take it that's a yes then," Marti manages when they part for air.

Nico makes a face—disbelief. "What do you think?"

"I think if I knew you'd react like this I would have brought it up sooner." Marti laughs.

Nico pauses for moment, glancing up in question. "How long have you been thinking about this?" There’s a curiosity in his eyes, burning.

Marti shrugs, shoulders loose. "I don't know,” he says, then corrects himself: “Quite a while."

He's not exactly sure when it transitioned from a curious wisp of a notion into a tangible thought—a thought with real intent and purpose behind it, pushing to the forefront. Just that when it did it was hard not to notice it. Like an elephant had taken up residence in his brain, and also decided to play the drums.

"What do you think about?" Nico asks, voice low, hands wandering beneath Marti’s t-shirt, up over his chest. 

Marti wonders whether his skin feels white-hot to Nico’s touch—his want manifesting. He’s starting to feel desperate in a way that’s becoming glaringly apparent.

"Ni, we're in your kitchen," he points out, because someone probably should. Before this rapidly gets out of hand. If it isn’t already.

Nico's parents have thankfully warmed up to Marti quite a bit over the last few months—they've even invited him to Anna's birthday soiree next month. But Marti is relatively certain that should they return from breakfast to find him and Nico in a compromising position against their kitchen counter—well, that might set Marti's progress with them back by several thousand weeks. Maybe even years.

Nico just hums in response, lips trailing down kisses to Marti's neck. It's a dirty trick and Nico is a menace.

"You're a menace," Marti says a little breathily.

Nico laughs against his skin. "You started this."

"Maybe," Marti concedes. His skin rises to the touch of Nico’s lips; his fingers clamber for Nico’s hips to pull him closer. His body is a traitor. Contradictory to his body, he manages, "Nico, your parents—"

Nico cuts him off with a kiss, and the rest of Marti’s sentence and the thought itself withers and dies upon Nico’s lips.

"Have you got yourself off thinking about it?" Nico murmurs between heady kisses, fingers teasing over the fabric of Marti's too-thin — too small, too, they're Nico's — jogging bottoms.

Well. "Yeah," Marti breathes.

"Tell me."

Before Marti can tell him — and in earnest — the bang of the front door all too predictably shakes through the apartment walls. If Marti weren’t so breathless with conflicting want and terror, he might have managed a spiteful _I told you so_.

They spring apart a little comically, Marti stumbling side-ways and Nico somehow managing to pick up his coffee in one hand and grab at Marti's wrist with the other to direct them to sit at the kitchen table all in one fell swoop. Marti is marginally impressed by Nico's quick-reflex manoeuvring. He can barely even get his brain in gear to form a coherent thought.

Belatedly, he realises he forgot to pick up his own coffee. He rests his hands awkwardly on the table, at a bit of a loss, and digs fingers into palms to stop them from shaking.

"Good morning, boys. Nico, your dad and I are going to the cinema in a little while, if you want to join us," Anna says as she breezes into the kitchen, seemingly and thankfully oblivious to Marti's fluster and inability to function. "They've remade Pet Sematary. Do you like horror, Martino?"

Marti glances up at his name. He’s certain his plight is written all over his face. "Uh. I—"

"We have study plans this afternoon," Nico interrupts, surprisingly graceful, saving Marti from stuttering through an answer. "But thanks anyway, mum."

He nudges at Marti's thigh with his foot and grins at him over the rim of his coffee cup, tongue flicking out between his teeth.

Marti might disintegrate. He hates him.

"I hate you," Marti mouths.

Nico laughs and says, barely audible, "We'll see about that."

Marti hears it for what it is: a promise. _Later_.

*

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://crucios.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/akielon).


End file.
